D3hoops.com Daily Dose

Since my last post the Beavers have been crowned the IIAC champs for the second year in a row. We clinched sole possession with a victory of the University of Dubuque on Wednesday night and a loss by Loras. We heard after the game in the locker room that Loras had lost to Cornell. We just celebrated a little bit, and Coach made sure he told us how proud he was of us and that it was an accomplishment. However, this team has set higher goals. In order to reach those higher goals we needed to win the regular season conference championship. To keep reaching those goals we need to win the tournament championship and get into the National Tournament. Before the conference tournament we have one regular season game left against a rising opponent. Friday night we are heading to Decorah, Iowa. We play Saturday at 4 against the Luther Norse. Luther has been battling week in and week out for a final spot in the conference tournament. They beat a good Central team last Saturday and they need to win out to get the 6^th and final spot. There defense is the best in the league and it will be a very good game.

I am going to talk about two more seniors today. The first is one of our guards Travis Person. Travis is a monster. He benches the most on the team, as he stands at 6,7” 230 lbs and is sold as a rock. He was a 4 man for us a couple seasons ago, but his ability to guard quicker opponents has improved and his ability to stroke it from downtown has been great consistently. My favorite story about Travis is a recent one. We were trailing to Wartburg in the second half a couple of weeks ago. Wartburg had beaten us at their place, and pretty much beat us in the first half at our place. In the second half we really moved the ball well on offense and worked for that good look against their zone. However, the ball never seemed to go any further than Travis Person. Travis was on fire, he had nine three pointers in the game. He pulled one from the IIAC symbol on our court which is about six feet behind the three point line. It was one of those nights where every time he touched it, without thinking it was going up, and it was going in. He finished the game 9 for 11 from the three point line, and had 27 points. With that game he earned Iowa Conference player of the week. Travis plans to do landscaping work for a cousin who owns a business in Des Moines. I guess he is going to continue to be a brut the rest of his life.

The other senior has been a teammate as well as a very good friend of mine for a long time. Kyle Stribe was a member of the Manning High School basketball team with me. We have been close for many years and it has been fun to watch him develop as a basketball player as well as a person. Off the court Kyle has come to be one of the funniest people of the team. At first you would think he was quiet and chill about everything, but once you get to know him he is a very funny person. He usually just sits on the back of the bus on road trips and throws his two cents in to the group of guys’ playing cards in front of him. His one line comments are some of the best. The best quality of Kyle on the court is that he doesn’t waste possessions. We always talk as a team on how important it is to not waste possessions. Kyle doesn’t turn the ball over. On top of that he doesn’t take bad shots. His three point percentage is amongst the highest in the league. He has improved his ball handling as well as passing over the years. My favorite basketball story about Kyle took place last season in a game against Benedictine College. Kyle scored 20 points including hitting 6 three pointers in the first 8 minutes of the game. It was truly one of the most amazing shooting displays I have ever witnessed. Kyle is currently student teaching at a school near Storm Lake. There is no doubt in my mind that he will be an outstanding teacher someday.

We are on the road Saturday at Luther and then home for the first round of the conference tournament next Thursday. We are focused on Luther right now as we know they are going to give us everything they have. They are well coached and very physical on both sides of the ball.

Hey Hey—just checking in from St. Louis for the first time in a few weeks. While the weather was 70 and sunny here yesterday (amazing!) the only thing hotter is the men’s and women’s basketball teams. OK so that was a really lame start to the blog, but really—combined we’ve won 11-straight UAA games and everyone down here is pumped with the way things are shaking out. We have a three-game lead in the UAA and the women are still tied for first with Rochester. Let’s rewind and go through our past few weeks.

Two weekends ago we traveled to Brandeis (Boston) and NYU—everyone’s favorite trip of the year. My parents, aunt and uncle, went on the trip so it was a blast going to nice dinners with them in Boston and New York. When we go to awesome cities like these, Coach Edwards gives us a night free to explore as long as we’re back by curfew. I could see other coaches being strict and making their players stay in the hotels, but Coach makes sure we get to enjoy the unique opportunity to see cities we don’t normally get to, however we want to see them. Last year, Tyler and I went to see a musical on Broadway—very cool and not something most college kids from St. Louis get to do during the school year. Listening to show tunes and musical soundtracks may or may not be a guilty pleasure of mine.

Anyway, Friday night’s game at Brandeis was a really tough one. The students were rowdy and on top of the court. Aside from cursing about my mom–I was dealt one of my lowest blows when one kid yelled at me ‘Hey Wallis—I read your blog on d3hoops.com and it sucks!’ At first it got to me—but then I was pumped because it meant more people than my parents and sisters are taking the time to read this stuff.

‘Deis hung tough but my man Cam Smith, who was growing a dirty stash out like Larry Legend, hit a big time shot down the stretch to help us get the W. A lot of people that don’t know too much about our team know about me, or Tyler or Aaron Thompson (AT)—but team’s need a guy like Cam to be successful. He’s leading our team in rebounding, he hits backbreaking shots, and he gets after it defensively while frustrating the other team’s best player.

We bussed to New York early Saturday for shoot-around and walk through to prepare for NYU. I don’t think we were ready for the way NYU cut early on and we were down 10-1 before any of us had woken up for the Sunday morning game. A.T. put us on his back and before you knew it we were up 28-12. We held a decent lead the rest of the way and got back to St. Louis with a clean weekend sweep and a 7-0 record at the midway point.

For those that don’t know how the UAA works, at the halfway point the schedule flips around. So we played NYU the next Friday and Brandeis on Sunday at home. It’s an extremely strange dynamic—and gives us a taste of what it would be like to play a five or seven-game series—how they do it in the NBA. Since I’d been at Wash U, we’d never won both games in the back-to-back turn around, but this year we were able to do so. Last year we lost to CMU by 30+ on Sunday then beat them by 15 the next Friday—just weird.

We took down NYU in front of rowdy Field House crowd on Friday night and beat an undermanned Brandeis squad on Sunday. We have a big weekend coming up including our last two road games of the season. Tomorrow morning we leave for Atlanta to play Emory on Friday then on Saturday we fly to Cleveland for our game against Case Western on Sunday.

I wanted to take this opportunity to address a few questions I got from some readers about my recovering from injury and my play on the court. I feel like my return this year has definitely been a success. We graduated the National Player of the Year, have an enormous target on our back as defending national champions, and still have found a way to be 19-1, 9-0 in the UAA.

Personally, while I played quite a bit this summer—I really didn’t feel like myself back on the court most of first semester. Physically my body was fully healed, but basketball is a lot about confidence and I’m not sure I fully had it in my leg the first month of the season. Right now, however, I feel fantastic. I think it just took time to know that if I got knocked down going to the basket, my leg wouldn’t necessarily snap, but I’d get back up and hit free-throws.

I think there are a few significant ways I feel like my game has evolved from a few years ago due to sitting back and watching. The first is I really am focused on ‘playing forward’–a term I’ve heard Kirk Hinrich use. He means that if you miss a shot or make a turnover, to forget about it and just worry about the next play in the game. Obviously at the end of the game you should evaluate why you made mistakes–but during the game, it’s important that those mistakes aren’t changing your mindset.

Another thing I am conscientious about is to make sure I value the ball on every one of our team’s possessions. After sitting out I realized how costly it is when turnovers actually happen–even if they’re aggressive turnovers, trying to make a play happen. I think that’s one of the reasons my assist-to-turnover ratio is well over three this year where it was under two a few years ago.

Also—there was a question about our PA announcer Bruce Veach, and his absence at a bunch of our games this year. He’s an important part to the Bear basketball family and is going through a tough fight with cancer so he’s only been able to be at a handful of games. He’s got all of our support though and is a tough guy and he’s gonna make it through this. Besides, no one yells “AT FOR THREEEEEEEEE” like he does!

Again, feel free to drop me a line at walliss@wustl.edu if there’s anything you want me to address. Only a few more until March!!!!

Take care,
Sean

P.S. Wanted to give some love to Corey O’Rourke and Elliot Curtis, Carnegie Mellon’s PGs, for their podcast ‘Two the Point’
It’s pretty good stuff if you get a chance to listen.

The Beavers are over half way through the conference schedule. We are currently 10-1 in conference play. Last Monday we ran across a very hot Wartburg team. Since I have been a part of this program, Buena Vista and Wartburg have had some battles on the basketball court. Unfortunately, we were unable to get things going offensively and had troubles stopping the Knights defensively. We suffered our first loss in the conference and it was really a gut-check time for our program. Like I expected, we took the loss from Wartburg and used it to focus on what we needed to do to be a great basketball team. We called a team meeting and set some goals that we thought would be important in winning our next four games. We focused on rebounding and how we really want to dominate teams on the glass. We also focused on limiting our empty possessions. By empty possessions, and I am talking about not just turning the ball over, but running our plays correctly and taking good shots as well. The final thing we talked about was basically finding our identity as a program. We wanted to point out things we do well and make sure we continue to do those things well. We came back two days after the loss and beat a Luther team that is much better than their record shows. We then continued our streak and beat Simpson on Saturday and COE College on Wednesday.

I am going to take this time to talk about our senior class a little bit. I will talk about Matt Cleveland and Andre Wagner today, and talk about the other seniors later. I am starting off with Matt Cleveland. I have lived with Matt the last two years and I feel like it has made our relationship stronger on the court. Matt is one of a kind. He stands at 6’8”, but can shoot the ball from the outside as good as anyone I have witnessed. Matt also has a great ability of rebounding the basketball. Matt has been named IIAC player of the week this year as well as tournament MVP in California. I feel fortunate that I have been able to play along side of him the last couple of years.

Andre Wagner is our starting point guard. Andre is an outstanding player as well as person. He is involved in many on-campus activities and he dedicates a lot of his time to helping others. He recently spent a month helping children in the area with disciplinary problems, which falls somewhere in his field. He plans to do something in the field of social work and there is no doubt that he will be great at it. He is just as good of a person on the court. When Andre came to Buena Vista he was a scorer. He came from a school where he was the offense. Now he is the leading scorer as well as assists man in the IIAC. He does whatever it takes to make the team better. His dedication to making himself a better player as well as his teammates is greatly appreciated. There is no doubt about that he makes me a better player.

We play at Central this weekend. Since I have been at Buena Vista I have never won a game there. They always seem to play their best against us and we expect nothing else. Next week we have two home games and I plan to keep you updated.

It has been pretty exciting since my last blog entry.  So far, 2009 has been exciting for our team. We started off the New Year with a tournament in the Bahamas, which was amazing: 80 degrees, time on the beach and shorts and t-shirts everyday, it was definitely a nice break from the middle of winter.  We played two games while we were there and won them both.  We played very well and everyone contributed and did their part, which helped us win as a team.

The Bahamas trip helped jump start us into our conference season. We’ve been focusing on the same things that helped us win in the Bahamas: hard work, team play, and excitement to play the game.  That’s helped us win our last six games and 10 of our last 11 games.  We are about half way through our conference season and are looking to make a run at the conference title and finish strong. 

I also had a great opportunity, recently, to meet Deb Cupery, she is the former all-time leading scorer at Edgewood College.  On Wednesday night (January 21st) I needed 16 points to break her record.  For me, breaking the record was not my focus because basketball is a team sport and I couldn’t have gotten there with out my teammates and coaches helping me.  It was a nervous day and I was more anxious to get it over with, but most of all I was excited to meet Deb and get to know her.  At the beginning of the game, I struggled and wasn’t in the groove.  But once again, my teammates and coaches were there to help me through it.   There wouldn’t have been any records broken if it wasn’t for them and their support means so much to me. 

It’s an honor to have broken the record but I’m glad that it’s over and done with.   We can now focus on the games ahead of us, looking to play our best, work together, and play well as a team. 

It’s only been a few weeks but I feel like I have a lot to write about—so here’s blog #4 from an airplane someplace between Pittsburgh and St. Louis.

Home Weekend: We had two home games last weekend in conference against Case Western and Emory. The UAA is a very different conference than any other in the country because of the geography involved. We play Friday nights and Sunday mornings every weekend–this leads to very different game atmospheres for the two games. Last Friday night we tipped-off at 8 p.m. in front of 1,500 or so Wash U faithful— including about 1,000 students. Sunday morning against Emory, in the same gym, there were maybe 100 people in the stands at 11 a.m. for tip-off–probably four hundred more got there by half time.

It isn’t hard to get fired up to play in front of a crowd like Friday’s—unfortunately Case Western was a little more fired up than we expected. They shot the heck out of the ball in the first half, but we weathered the storm and pulled ahead with great defense in the second half.

Sunday we got off to a great start against Emory and never looked back. Coach Edwards says “UAA championships are won on Sundays” and I really agree with him. The teams that can be ready to play at a.m. and focused on the task at hand win those games.

Taking the road: This past weekend started our rough stretch of four-straight road games. Starting Thursday we were going to be spending six of 10 nights in hotels in Rochester, Pittsburgh, Boston & New York City. Seriously–that’s like an NBA schedule. Playing in the UAA we take for granted the amazing opportunity of being able to pick up and leave school to travel to some the greatest cities in the country—but when you’re on the road like this it gets tough between missing four days of class and not sleeping in your own bed.

The Rochester/Carnegie Mellon trip has not been good to us since I’ve been here. I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of two Final Four teams and another team that JUST missed the tournament—and those teams were a combined 1-5 on this trip, never winning at Rochester. Last year’s national championship team got smacked by CMU, on a Sunday, by 30+ points, so this was a big trip for us since they (UR & CMU) were both 2-1 in conference going into the weekend– with us at 3-0.

On Thursday, we met at our gym at 4:15 a.m. for our travel day from hell—a 6 a.m. flight from St. Louis to Baltimore…another flight Baltimore to Buffalo…and a two hour bus ride from Buffalo to Rochester. Somehow we got enough rest Thursday after our practice for our Friday night game (8:30 pm to 9:30 am sleeping—not bad!). We took advantage of an undermanned Rochester team and never took our foot off the gas—not too many teams win at the Palestra, so even if they were missing the conference’s leading scorer it was still a good win. We took an early bus ride Saturday morning from Rochester to Pittsburgh for a practice at CMU to prepare for our game this morning.

The game today was a big-time battle. Both teams traded punches in the first half and got into some foul trouble. They hit some shots—then we hit some shots and had a seven-point halftime lead. They then cut it to three points early in the second half—but over a two-minute span, we went on a 17-0 (yes, that’s right 17-0!!!) run to put the game to 20. That run was the most fun I’ve had playing basketball in a long, long time. Our defense was clicking, leading to turnovers, leading to fast-breaks, leading to wide open lay-ups and threes–it was just awesome. That run was all we needed and we held on for the win.

Rootin’ for the Women: Another cool thing about the UAA is how close we get with the women’s team. We travel together every weekend, watch every one of their games and go to dinners together on the road. So, just because we beat Rochester on Friday we were all bummed and kinda quiet on the bus to Pittsburgh Saturday a.m. since they lost a tough one that they almost had the night before–we call that a “sad” bus. But, since we both won on Sunday (and UR women lost to Chicago) we’re both now either in or tied for first place in the conference–so now I’m flying on “happy” plane with lots of laughter and–dare I say–flirting.

Notes:
– Congrats to Coach Edwards who was honored at the Baseball writers of Missouri’s banquet last week – you can see him in the background of this picture with some guy named Albert Pujols.

– Congrats to my roomie and best bud Tyler Nading on setting the all-time fouls record at Wash U… we’re all so proud of you!

– Before our Emory game I asked the refs about the trivia question I had last blog–and they were 1,000% sure that once the ball hits the ground it is NO LONGER a FG attempt and wouldn’t count if it were after the buzzer—and that it would be a two if time wasn’t an issue.

–On a personal note–it meant a lot to me that EVERY single guy on the Varsity team came to our team’s JV game on Monday night. When we were freshmen, Tyler and I would be the ONLY one’s that played in the Varsity game (aside from the coaches) to go watch our teammates since it is traditionally on a Varsity day off. It really shows how tight this team is, how the program has evolved and changed in my four years, and how every player on this roster is pulling for everyone else.

–HUGE game for us on Friday night @ Brandeis (4-1 in conference). If we can get a W, everyone else in the UAA will have at least two losses, putting us in good shape since five of our last seven are at home. We want to do damage again in March, but we are hungry for a UAA championship since we didn’t get one last year!

Take care,
Sean